中国住房：过剩，还是短缺？

The Evergrande debacle has not yet morphed into a pernicious Chinese “Lehman moment”, but it has rekindled deeper concerns in the marketplace about the health of the Chinese real estate sector. Investors fear that a collapse in Chinese housing activity could lead to a material growth slowdown that would ripple across the world. Mainstream financial media frequently quotes a 2020 paper, “Peak China Housing”, authored by renowned Harvard Professor Kenneth Rogoff and Tsinghua University scholar Yuanchen Yang, highlighting Chinese real estate excesses. Many clients have written us asking for our opinion on this highly complex topic.

恒大虽然还没有演变成“雷曼时刻”，但它重新引发了市场对中国房地产行业健康状况更深层次的担忧。投资者担心，房地产活动的骤冷可能导致实质性增长放缓并波及全球。主流金融媒体经常引用哈佛大学著名教授肯尼斯·罗格夫（Kenneth Rogoff）和清华大学学者杨元晨（Yuanchen Yang）2020年撰写的一篇论文《中国房地产拐点》（Peak China Housing），强调中国房地产过剩。许多读者写信给我们，询问艾摩对这个高度复杂话题的看法。

To be blunt, we did not find the much-touted Rogoff & Yang paper well-researched or chock-full of original ideas. In our view, the paper lacks historical context, and confuses housing demand in China, a rapidly urbanizing economy, with that of fully urbanized countries where housing demand is a lot more measured and stable. Therefore, the conclusion that China’s housing market is massivelyoverbuilt is highly questionable.

坦率的讲，我们并不觉得这篇被大肆吹捧的罗格夫和杨的论文经过了充分的研究，或者说充满了新颖的观点。我们认为，该论文缺乏历史背景，并将中国这个快速城市化经济体与完全城市化国家的住房需求混为一谈，后者的住房需求更可预测也更稳定。因此，关于中国住宅市场大规模过度建设的结论是非常值得讨论的。

The government has introduced several policies for real estate.Without an immediate and material relaxing on financing rules for developers, the sector risks a systemic fallout under the heavy weight of draconian policy tightening.

政府针对房地产出台多条政策。在当下经济快速放缓的背景下。如果不立即对开发商的融资环境进行实质性的放松，该行业就有可能出现系统性风险。

Most of our readers do not have the luxury of spending time reading a 45-page-long paper. Here is a brief recap. The Rogoff and Yang paper argues that decades of a housing construction boom in China have led to severe price misalignments and supply-demand mismatches, making an adjustment inevitable. By benchmarking China to some other countries, the paper concludes that China’s real estate is vulnerable to a sustained growth shock. As such, housing activity declines could easily cut Chinese output by 5-10%.

大多数读者没有时间去阅读一份45页长的文章。让我们来做一个简短的回顾。罗格夫和杨的论文认为，中国几十年的住房建设热潮已经导致了严重的价格错位和供需错配，这使得调整不可避免。通过将中国与其他一些国家进行对比，该论文的结论是，中国的房地产行业很容易受到持续增长的冲击。因此，住房活动的下降可以轻易地使中国的产出减少5%-10%。

In their view, the ails of the Chinese housing market are obvious.

在他们看来，中国住房市场的问题是显而易见的。

• Spectacular price gains and extreme unafford-ability. According to Rogoff’s and Yang’s findings, Chinese home prices surged by a factor of 10 between 1991 and 2018 (Chart 1), far out-pacing any other recent housing bubbles. The price gains were particularly dramatic in firsttier cities. Between 2002 and 2018 alone, home prices in these mega metropolitan areas jumped by six-fold, compared to 80% gains in the U.S. between 2000 and 2005, or 100% and 230% in Ireland and Spain in their respective housing booms, all of which ended in tears.

• 惊人的价格涨幅和极端的不可负担性。根据Rogoff和Yang的研究结果，中国的房价在1991年至2018年期间飙升了10倍（图1），远远超过了最近任何其他国家的住房泡沫。一线城市的价格涨幅尤其惊人。仅在2002年至2018年期间，中国这些超大城市地区的房价就跃升了6倍，相比之下，美国在2000年至2005年期间的涨幅为80%，爱尔兰和西班牙在其各自的住房热潮中的涨幅分别为100%和230%，但最终这些故事都以泪水收场。

Such drastic price gains in Chinese first-tier cities led to extremely poor affordability compared with other major cities around the world (Chart 2). Home price-to-income ratios in Beijing and Shanghai are currently over 40 times, far higher than other major cities in the world.

中国一线城市如此急剧的价格上涨，导致与世界其他主要城市相比，可负担性极差（图2）。北京和上海的房价收入比目前超过40倍，远高于世界上其他主要城市。

• Unprecedented real estate investment boom. Rogoff et al. claim that the drastic price increases in the Chinese housing sector were accompanied by an unprecedented real estate investment boom. Real estate investment has accounted for more than 10% of GDP in recent years, compared with 7% in the U.S. in 2005 prior to the housing bubble, or about 5% more recently (Chart 3, top panel).

• 前所未有的房地产投资热潮。罗格夫等人声称，中国住宅价格的急剧上升是伴随着前所未有的房地产投资热潮而出现的。近年来，房地产投资占GDP的10%以上，而美国在房地产泡沫之前的2005年为7%，最近则降为5%左右（图3，顶部图表）。

Moreover, combined with construction activity, the impact of China’s real estate sector on overall economic growth is even larger, according to Rogoff and Yang. The authors calculated that the real estate and construction industries combined accounted for around 29% of China’s GDP in 2016, comparable only to pre-crisis Spain and Ireland (Chart 3, bottom panel), both of which suffered a devastating bust.

此外，根据Rogoff和Yang的说法，与更广泛的建筑活动相结合，中国的房地产行业对整体经济增长的影响甚至更大。作者计算出，2016年房地产和建筑业加起来约占中国GDP的29%，与危机前的西班牙和爱尔兰相当（图3，底部图表），这两个国家接下来都遭遇了的大萧条。

• Exhausted housing demand. The paper argues that China’s housing oversupply is particularly worrying, as housing demand is set to weaken substantially. It claims that China’s home ownership is over 90%, the highest among major economies, while per-capita living space is already comparable to many high-income countries (Chart 4). This, together with China’s advanced urbanization process and aging demographics, has exhausted demand, leading to a structural, if not permanent, peak in Chinese housing construction. Given the economy’s heavy dependence on real estate and construction, the impact on Chinese growth will be severe and long-lasting.

• 住房需求枯竭。该文章认为，中国的住房供应过剩问题尤其令人担忧，原因是住房需求将大幅减弱。它声称，中国的住房自有率超过90%，是主要经济体中是最高的，而人均居住面积已经与许多高收入国家相当（图4）。这一点，加上中国较高的城市化进程和人口老龄化，已经基本耗尽了需求，导致了中国住房建设的结构性（如果不是永久性的话）高峰。鉴于中国经济对房地产和建筑业的严重依赖，这对中国经济增长的影响将是深远且持久的。

A key challenge for investors to fully understand the Chinese housing market situation is a lack of coprehensive official statistics, which leaves room for misunderstanding and misinterpretation. Rogoff and Yang deserve accolades for making the effort to sort through numerous datasets to present China’s housing supply-demand dynamics. Nonetheless, some of the data quoted in the paper appear questionable. For example, China’s exceedingly high home ownership cited in the paper, at over 90%, contradicts with extreme unaffordability of home ownership. Moreover, the paper suggests that fixed asset investment as a share of GDP has reached 70-80%, which is obviously statistically impossible.

投资者是否能充分了解中国住房市场状况的一个关键挑战，是缺乏全面的官方统计数据，这为误判留下了空间。Rogoff和Yang努力通过众多数据来评估中国的住房供需状况，值得称赞。然而，论文中引用的一些数据似乎值得商榷。例如，论文中引用的中国超过90%的自有住房率，与住房的极端不可负担性相矛盾。此外，该文件表明，固定资产投资占GDP的比重已经达到70%-80%，这在统计学上显然是不可能的。

Due to different statistical caliber and bear little real-life relevance.

由于统计口径不同，与真相没什么关系。

More importantly, however, even assuming the numbers quoted in the paper are largely valid, we strongly disagree with the conclusions.

At the onset, the paper’s conclusion that China’s massive housing supply overhang co-exists with a price “bubble” defies the basic laws of supply and demand in economics, as oversupply should put downward pressure on prices. Housing oversupply and dramatic price gains can co-exist only if mortgage lending standards are loose and easily available, as happened during the housing booms in the U.S. and some European countries prior to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). However, the opposite has been true in China, where mortgage lending standards have been very stringent. Mandatory down payments for mortgage borrowing have never been lower than 20%, and existing homeowners are typically required to put down as much as 60% to borrow to buy a second home.

首先，该文件的结论是，中国大规模的住房供应过剩与价格 "泡沫 "并存，这违背了经济学中的基本供需法则，因为供应过剩会给价格带来下行压力。只有在抵押贷款标准宽松且容易获得的情况下，住房供应过剩和价格大幅上涨才能并存，就像全球金融危机前的美国和一些欧洲国家在住房繁荣时期所发生的那样。然而，中国的情况恰恰相反，中国的抵押贷款标准一直非常严格。抵押贷款的强制性首付从未低于20%，今天购房者通常被要求支付高达60%的首付来购买第二套住房。

Meanwhile, there have been two episodes of monetary tightening since the GFC. Mortgage interest rates were raised by 330 and 125 basis points, respectively, in 2009-2011 and 2017-2018, both of which had no visible or long-lasting impact on home prices (Chart 5). If China’s housing market is indeed as dangerously oversupplied and Chinese households as highly levered as described in the Rogoff-Yang paper, such rate hikes would have led to a collapse in home prices.

同时，自全球金融危机以来，出现了两次货币紧缩政策。2009-2011年和2017-2018年，抵押贷款利率分别提高了330和125个基点，这两次都没有对房价产生明显或持久的影响（图5）。如果中国的住房市场确实像罗格夫与杨的论文中描述的那样大幅供过于求，叠加中国家庭的高杠杆率，那么加息会导致房价崩溃。

In hindsight, the monetary tightening can be viewed as a stress test, which reveals that China’s housing fundamentals are a lot more resilient than the authors fear.

Second, comparing China’s current real estate activity with those of developed countries is overly simplistic and lacks a basic understanding of the history of China’s housing sector. It is important to note that China’s housing “market” only began to develop nation-wide in the late 1990s, when the country embarked on housing reforms. Prior to the reforms, China had had a housing system since 1949, where households were allocated residences either directly from the state or from their state-owned employers. More importantly,the government prioritized industrial development over residential development in those years. Therefore, the half-century-long socialist housing system created an acute shortage of housing. Chinese policymakers were eventually forced to push households into the market and to buy homes from developers, ushering in the market-oriented housing reforms.

第二，将中国目前的房地产活动与发达国家相比较，过于简单粗暴，缺乏对中国商品房历史的基本了解。值得注意的是，中国的住房"市场 "是在20世纪90年代末开始在全国范围内展开的，当时中国开始了住房改革。在改革之前，中国自1949年以来一直施行家庭直接从国家或国有企业那里分配住宅的制度。更重要的是，在那些年里，政府将工业发展置于住宅发展之上。因此，造成了住房的严重短缺。中国的政策制定者最终被迫将家庭推向市场，从开发商那里购买住房，迎来了市场化的住房改革。

In other words, the housing reforms of the late 1990s were a watershed event that led to a construction boom and dramatically improved Chinese peoples’ living conditions. In this vein, it is wrong to conclude that Chinese residential construction was excessive as soon as China’s construction activity as a share of GDP surpassed other countries, because a significant part of the construction was simply to make up for the cumulated housing shortages under the half-century-long socialist system. Rogoff’s chart (top panel, Chart 3 on page 3) shows China’s housing activity has been higher than U.S. levels since 2002, but it falls short of showing that China’s housing investment prior to that was extremely low. Chart 6 shows China’s housing investment accounted for a mere 1% of GDP in the mid 1980s when the data became available, and the ratio was mostly likely even lower in earlier years. To rectify housing shortages and satisfy pent-up residential demand, China’s housing construction will have to be a lot stronger than the U.S. for an extended period of time.

换句话说，20世纪90年代末的住房改革是一个分水岭，它直接导致了建筑业的繁荣，极大地改善了中国人民的生活条件。在这种情况下，一旦中国的建筑活动占GDP的比重超过其他国家，就得出中国住宅建设过度的结论是非常错误的，因为很大一部分建设只是为了弥补长达半个世纪所累积的住房短缺问题。罗格夫的图表（第3页图表3的上半部分）显示，自2002年以来，中国的住房活动水平一直高于美国，但它没有说明中国在此之前的住房投资是极低的。图6显示，在20世纪80年代中期，有效数据显示，中国的住房投资仅占GDP的1%，而在更早的年份，这一比例很可能更低。为了纠正住房短缺和满足被压抑的住宅需求，中国的住房建设强度必然会在很长一段时间内比美国大得多。

Similarly, Rogoff’s chart comparing China with other countries (bottom panel, Chart 3 on page 3) also fails to recognize China’s historical housing shortages. More importantly, the countries that Rogoff uses for benchmarking are all fully urbanized developed countries where housing demand is primarily driven by population growth (Chart 7). In China’s case, however, rapid urbanization has been the key driver for housing demand, which together with organic population growth necessitates that Chinese housing investment should be far higher than those countries. Without the construction boom, Chinese cities may have been plagued by sprawling urban slums like in many populous developing countries such as Brazil, India, South Africa and Mexico.

同样，罗格夫将中国与其他国家进行比较的图表（第3页图3底部图表）也没有认识到中国历史上的住房短缺。更重要的是，罗戈夫用来作为比较基准的国家都是完全城市化的发达国家，这些国家的住房需求主要由人口增长驱动（图7）。然而，就中国而言，快速的城市化一直是住房需求的主要驱动力，再加上人口的有机增长，中国的住房投资必然远远高于这些国家。如果没有建设热潮，中国的城市可能会像巴西、印度、南非和墨西哥等许多人口众多的发展中国家一样，被无序的城市贫民窟所困扰。

Another problem of benchmarking China to DM countries is that Rogoff and Yang have taken for granted that since China’s real estate and construction account for a larger share of GDP than other developed countries, it must be that China’s level is excessive. However, it is also well known that many developed countries are suffering from insufficient investment, with decaying housing stock and aging infrastructure. In fact, home prices in these countries have been rising faster than in China’s, despite much lower income growth (Chart 8). Therefore, the slowdown in housing construction in these countries since the GFC may have led to supply shortages and bid up prices. China’s home price gains could have been even stronger if its housing investment were at similar levels to these DM countries.

将中国与发达国家进行对标的另一个问题是，Rogoff和Yang想当然地认为，既然中国的房地产和建筑业占GDP的比重高于其他发达国家，那就一定是中国的水平过高。然而，众所周知，许多发达国家正遭受着投资不足的困扰，存量住房与基础设施老化。事实上，这些国家的房价一直比中国的房价上涨得快，尽管收入增长要低得多（图8）。因此，自全球金融危机以来，这些国家的住房建设放缓，可能导致了供应短缺和价格上涨。如果中国的住房投资与这些发达国家处于类似的水平，那么中国的房价涨幅可能会更大。

Finally, it is equally wrong to conclude that China’s housing demand has reached a secular peak, as China’s urbanization process is not complete. At about 60%, there is still at least 20-30% of the Chinese population in rural areas that will move into cities in the coming decades. Meanwhile, many migrant workers are still living in factory dorm rooms or sub-standard homes, and will naturally upgrade to better residences going forward. All of this will create constant housing demand for decades to come.

最后，认为中国的住房需求已经达到了一个长期的高峰，同样是错误的，因为中国的城市化进程还没有完成。目前约为60%。中国农村人口在未来几十年内仍有至少20%-30%将迁入城市。同时，许多农民工仍然住在工厂的宿舍或低标准的房子里，今后自然会升级到更好的住宅。所有这些都将在未来几十年内创造持续的住房需求。

Moreover, using per-capita living space to forecast housing demand is problematic. For example, both the U.S. and Canada have the highest per-capita living space in the world, in Rogoff’s chart (Chart 4on page 4), and yet housing construction in both countries has been soaring for the past decade, particularly since 2019, when residential construction has gone vertical in both countries (Chart 9). This means that housing demand is a function of interest rates and income growth. So long as Chinese economic growth and household income levels continue to improve, demand for better and bigger housing will be insatiable.

此外，使用人均居住面积来预测住房需求是有问题的。例如，在罗戈夫的图表中，美国和加拿大人均拥有世界上最高的人均居住面积（第4页的图表4），然而这两个国家的住房建设在过去十年中一直在飙升，特别是自2019年以来，这两个国家的住宅建设已经垂直飙升（图表9）。这意味着，住房需求是利率和收入增长的函数。只要中国经济增长和家庭收入水平继续提高，对更好、更大住房的需求将成为一种必然。

Economic predictions cooked out of ivory towers are typically harmless. What’s more troubling is that Chinese policymakers have long held similar views that the domestic housing excesses need to be checked. Needless to say, China’s poor housing affordability is a source of glaring social discontent, and policymakers deserve credit for trying to address this issue. Indeed, they have imposed numerous policy restrictions on all aspects of residential development, from land sales and developer financing to mortgage borrowing and home purchase restrictions. However, the administrative meddling has been counterproductive, as discussed in an earlier report and has failed to arrest the sharp rally in Chinese home prices.

从象牙塔诞生的经济预测通常是免责的。但令人不安的是，一些经济学家和政策制定者长期以来一直持有类似的观点，认为国内的住房过剩现象必须被遏制。毋庸置疑，中国糟糕的住房负担能力是引发社会不满的重要原因之一，政策制定者试图解决这个问题值得肯定。事实上，他们已经对住宅开发的所有方面施加了许多政策，从土地销售和开发商融资到抵押贷款和购房限制。然而，正如先前的一份报告3 所述，干预结果适得其反，限制供应未能阻止中国房价的大幅上涨。

The ineffectiveness of tight housing policy, however, has led to ever tighter measures to fight the illusional housing bubble. As a highly levered business by nature, a sudden stop of funding flows can easily threaten the going concern of the most financially conservative developers. Without a material loosening of funding restrictions on developers, the credit crunch could spread to the entire sector, causing systemic stress in the broader economy. The latest central bank statement recognizes this risk and appears to be fine-tuning policies. It remains to be seen whether this could backstop the escalating financial stress among developers.

然而，紧缩性住房政策的无效性导致了越来越严格的措施，来调控虚幻的房地产泡沫。作为一个天生高杠杆的行业，即使是财务上最保守的开发商，资金流的突然中断也很容易威胁到它的持续经营。如果对开发商的资金限制没有实质性的放松，信贷紧缩可能会蔓延到整个行业，在整体经济中造成系统性压力。央行的最新声明认识到了这种风险，似乎正在对政策进行微调。这是否能阻止对开发商不断升级的金融压力，还有待观察。

In the near term, the path of least resistance for the Chinese economy is down, and the latest credit and growth numbers remain worrying. Our credit impulse indicator remains deeply depressed, and our business cycle indicator has continued to plunge, with no signs of an immediate bottom (Chart 10). We suspect the current growth rate is already below the authorities’ pain threshold and expect that policy reflation will gain momentum. Our conviction level, however, has been weakened by the lack of an immediate policy rescue for developers.

短期内，中国经济阻力最小的路径是继续下行，最新的信贷和增长数字仍然令人担忧。我们的信贷冲动指标仍然深度低迷，商业周期指标也持续暴跌，短期内没有见底的迹象（图10）。我们怀疑目前的增长率已经低于当局的阈值，并预计政策再通胀将加大力度。然而，这种判断在当下由于没有看到政策对开发商有效的救援而被削弱。

Finally, we advise against buying Chinese property developers’ U.S. dollar bonds, which have suffered huge losses amid the Evergrande debacle and effective defaults of several other Chinese developers (Chart 11). The authorities will ultimately be forced to ease the stringent controls on property developers’ access to financing, but investors should avoid jumping in too early, as it is impossible to time such a policy move. Moreover, the authorities may decide that defaults on offshore bonds are irrelevant for domestic financial stability and maintain a hands-off approach. A lot of the property company debt outstanding is short term, but the market is unwilling at the moment to roll over the paper, and banks are either constrained or unwilling to extend financing, which could lead to additional defaults among weaker developers.

最后，我们建议对中国房地产开发商的美元债券的投资仍需要观察等待。尽管这些债券在恒大崩溃和其他几家中国开发商的实质性违约中已经大幅打折（图11）。当局最终将被迫放松对房地产开发商融资的严格控制，但投资者应避免过早介入，因为政策是不可控的。此外，当局可能会认为，离岸债券的违约与国内金融稳定无关，最终保持不干涉态度。很多未偿还房地产公司债务都是短期的，但目前市场不愿意翻篇儿，而银行要么受到限制，要么不愿意续贷，这可能会导致较弱的开发商出现更多的违约。